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| Yep, foul on Bibby |
A bit of history here. I'm was born in Washington, DC, so I grew up a Washington Bullets fan. The first year that I got to see my Bullets make the playoffs (the 1996-1997 season) they were swept unceremoniously by the defending champion Chicago Bulls, sparking my hatred of Michael Jordan. That year, the Bullets' best player, Chris Webber, averaged 20.1ppg, 10.3rpg, 4.6apg, 1.7spg, and 1.9bpg. An all-around great year for a power forward; seasons like this solidified Webber as one of the premier 4s in the league. When the Bullets traded Webber before the 98-99 season, I followed him to Sacramento (in a fan capacity...I'm not a creeper, bro). While I still rooted for my (now not playoff-contending) Wizards (yea, they changed that too), I was primarily a Sacramento Kings fan, since they had my favorite player. In the beginning, the team didn't do much (remember that the Western Conference has been strong for as long as I've been watching basketball), but by 2002, they had a championship-caliber team. I watched with glee as Mike Bibby replaced Jason Williams and Chris Webber played like a perennial All-Star. I loved watching Peja unload 3s. I loved seeing Divac perform his obvious flops. I loved watching Arco Arena on TV with their cowbells and the commentators bringing equipment to measure the decibels in the arena. Most of all, I loved watching the Kings play the most exciting style of basketball in the league, averaging over 104 points per game in the 2001-2002 season.
The 2002 playoff season was supposed to be the Kings' time. They had gotten all of their pieces in working order, no one major was injured (for long), the offense was working seamlessly, and they had all the confidence in the world. When they got to the Western Conference Finals to face the two-time defending champion Los Angeles Lakers, there was palpable fear at the time on the part of Lakers fans that they might not finish the 3rd three-peat for Phil Jackson, and for good reason. The Lakers ended up taking a 2-3 series deficit back home in an elimination Game 6.
I won't go into the details of the game, but numerous observers have noted the dubious nature of many of the fouls, and the fact that the Lakers shot more free throws in the 4th quarter of that game than they had averaged in entire games throughout the series. Somehow all of the Kings' big men fouled out, yet Shaq was in the game. Somehow Bibby got called for a foul after being elbowed in the nose. Whatever. I'm not over it, but I won't go into detail here. So basically, since Game 4 in that series (when a halftime "buzzer-beater" 3 was allowed even though it was clearly late) I've hated the Lakers. I hate everything about them. I hate that they're routinely gifted top bigs. I hate that the refs cheat for them. I hate that their fans think they're legitimate fans of a team when half of them only started rooting for them when they started winning chips again. I hate that they win chips. I hate that they have probably the most selfish star of all time in Kobe Bryant (this summer, Kobe said that even if they had beaten the Pistons, they couldn't have kept the team together due to what HE wanted to do with HIS career. Really?). I hate that the critique of Kobe ends with "well he won 5 rings, so fuck you." I hate that Orlando in 2009 basically rolled over and gave them the series. I hate that they got THE WHITE HOWARD for nothing more than getting rid of a guy they screwed over multiple times anyway. I hate that players who have valid reasons to hate them just end up playing with them (I'm looking at you, Ron-Ron). I hate that even Steve Nash, who battled them for years, was sucked into playing for them. FUCK THE LAKERS. Forever. There's literally no way I'll ever root for the Lakers.
That being said, you'd be hard-pressed to find a team with a more interesting offseason than the Lakers. They attained the best center in the league. They also got a Hall of Fame point guard in Steve Nash. They picked up former Wizard and career 19.5/7.9 guy Antawn Jamison. When you look at their starting line-up, every one of those players has at least 1 All-Star game. Two have won MVPs. Two have won DPOYs. All while keeping the majority of their pieces AND scooping up half of the 2005 Wizards' coaching staff to incorporate the Princeton offense. A lot of teams have made moves, but the Lakers have arguably made the best moves. Steve Nash definitely has at least 1 more good year in him, as does Antawn Jamison. As much as it annoys me to say it, the Lakers definitely put themselves in the championship conversation with these moves...
I had heard that the Artest Formerly Known as Ron stated that the goal for the Lakers this year was 73-9 (that is, one more win than the 95-96 Chicago Bulls team that set the record for most wins in the regular season). Without a doubt, that would be a great feather to put in Kobe Bryant's cap when comparing him to Michael Jordan (again, let me reiterate that even if they did go 73-9 or 75-7...Michael Jordan is better than Kobe Bryant), but I was obviously skeptical that that could even happen. I asked around on Twitter about what teams had even won 65 games recently, and friend of the blog Quentin Haynes laid out the ones who had done so:
The 2006-2007 Dallas Mavericks won 67
The 2007-2008 Boston Celtics won 66
The 2008-2009 Cleveland Cavaliers won 66
The 2008-2009 Los Angeles Lakers won 65
Some of these teams were exceptionally built; the 07-08 Boston Celtics in particular seemed unbelievably good right out of the gate, and indeed, they ended up winning the championship. However, thinking about those teams, the 08-09 Cavs/Lakers each played in shitty divisions, so they benefited from playing 16 games against teams nowhere near their level; the Celtics also played in a division with teams that were no match for them. The Mavericks at least were in a tough division (3 teams won at least 50 games) AND they started the year 0-4 (making that even more impressive to me), but they ended up losing to the Warriors in the playoffs anyway. Out of the four teams, two actually did win the title, but two lost fairly embarrassingly.
Moving to the Lakers, before considering Dwight Howard possibly missing the beginning of the season, Quentin stated that he felt the Lakers would win 68 games (IIRC, I could be wrong, but it was somewhere around there). I felt like that was nonsense, so I looked at the Lakers' schedule and...
Let us consider how NBA scheduling is done. A team plays the other four teams in their division 4 times a year (16). They 4 games against 6 other non-division conference teams (24), 3 games against the remaining 4 conference teams (12), and 2 games against each team in the opposing conference. Off top, you can see that playing in a weak conference or weak division is very beneficial to a team, and helps explain how 3 of the 4 teams I named achieved such great records. Additionally though, if you are just a better team, you are going to probably win those games against the teams outside of your conference, etc. So...I looked at the Lakers schedule to give a rough estimate...
Lakers' Schedule
Good fucking grief. Their schedule is easy as fuck. Honestly, running through it, I estimate them winning 69 games, even with Howard's questionable status. 69 fucking games, and that was with giving them losses in some situations that they could pull out wins. They really could start the season 19-0 and end the season with 20 straight wins. Could they also lose to the Clippers, Spurs, Nets, or Nuggets in those first 19 games? Yes. Do they have a rough stretch where they play BK, Boston, Miami, the Clippers, and Boston again in a 7 game span? Yes. Do I still think they win 65 games? Yes. They really have the talent to do so, and I honestly think that without Dwight, their offense will look ridiculously good. They have shooters now (including Nash, possibly the best shooter of the last 10 years), Gasol has always been an exceptional offensive big, and we know that one of the things Jamison does well is score. The bench will be pretty bad with Howard out (I have to think Jamison starts at the 4 during that stretch), but when he comes back, having Jamison, Meeks, and Jordan Hill is good. It's not a spectacular bench, but everyone can't be Denver and have 2 starting line-ups. Of course, this is all barring injury to any major component. If they lose Nash...or Howard...or Kobe, this team will turn to non-championship material pretty quickly. If they stay healthy though, they'll be in a solid position to do better than they did last year.
HOWEVER. I think that they still didn't address two of the main reasons they weren't able to get past the Thunder in the playoffs last year; Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook. Looking into the numbers of the Thunder/Lakers series last year, it's easy to see who was beating them:
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| Durant's numbers against the Lakers |
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| Westbrook's numbers against the Lakers |
Honestly, as good as Steve Nash is, defense has never been his forte...his career defensive rating (estimated points allowed per 100 possessions) is 110...putting that into perspective, someone like Rondo who's considered a good defensive point guard has a rating of 101; Chris Paul has one of 104. It's a pretty sizable difference, and you can only imagine that it will get worse as he gets even older. Stopping Westbrook with Nash is...probably not going to happen. Even worse, Dwight Howard is fairly foul-prone, averaging 3.2 a game in his career. In the playoffs, where manipulating foul counts and taking effective shots is even more important, I can easily see multiple situations where Dwight isn't a factor at the end of games. On one hand, he will definitely be in foul trouble. Considering that the Lakers' other main players (Nash, Kobe, Jamison, hell, even Gasol) aren't known as exceptional defenders in 2012, it would be even more imperative to remove a 3-time DPOY from the court with haste. On the offensive side of the court, Dwight is a terrible free throw shooter (career FT% of 58.8%...Shaq's was 58.2%; the Thunder are an exceptional free throw shooting team at 80.6%) and having him on the floor at the end of games gives the Thunder the opportunity to use the "hack-a-Shaq" strategy on Dwight. We saw them utilize that on the Spurs' Tiago Splitter last year, so Scott Brooks clearly isn't opposed to doing it, and Dwight is a worse FT shooter than him. Considering how the Lakers' offense will probably flow by that point of the season, doing whatever you can to disrupt that tempo would be imperative, even to a team with athletically gifted defenders like Oklahoma City.
While the series between OKC and LA was closer than the 4-1 margin suggests (Games 2-4 were decided by a combined 8 points; the Lakers were -2 in those 3 games), it was pretty obvious that the refs gave the Lakers Game 3 and that the Thunder were the better team, period. Removing Bynum for Howard isn't as close to a wash as some people have suggested, but really, Howard is one of the few centers (or people playing center) that Perkins still matches up well against, so the difference offensively won't be that different in my opinion. Defensively, the difference will be massive, especially if Howard really did fake that injury last year and is healthy. In terms of effort, rotations, athleticism, and even just defensive IQ, Howard is leagues ahead of Bynum, and it will be noticed, even against a great offensive team like OKC. I don't even have to get into how much better Steve Nash is than Ramon Sessions, but in terms of stopping Russell Westbrook, they might as well be the same player. All-in-all, the Lakers may win 2 games due to getting homecourt against the Thunder, but if they make it to face the Thunder in the WCF, they will lose in 6.
A lot of people have been focusing on the Lakers/Thunder matchup (myself included), but after taking more looks at the rest of the conference, I feel that the Lakers could easily be unlucky and get Denver in the second round. Last postseason, the Lakers and Denver slugged each other in a 7 game series, with Kobe Bryant going 7 for 16 for 17 points in the final game. Luckily, Gallinari never discovered his shooting touch (he ended up shooting 36.2% in the series) and he combined with JaVale McGee and Andre Miller to go 3 for 26 in the deciding Game 7. I'm going to go out on a limb and say that Miller (a career 46% shooter) won't shoot 1 for 10 that often, and I honestly believe McGee will have a better season this year than last year, having had some time to get acclimated to the team and Coach Karl. Gallinari was injured for a lot of last year, and wasn't the same when he returned in March (from March to the end of the season, he averaged 11.2ppg on 36/35/83 splits; from December to February he averaged 17.0ppg on 45/31/89 splits). I think having an entire offseason to recover will do wonders for him, and offensively, he's probably their best weapon. The addition of Andre Iguodala gives them another playmaker with EXCEPTIONAL defense; if Kobe thought that playing against Afflalo was a pain in the ass last year, he'll be begging for those days back if they meet Denver in the playoffs this season. Denver is also one of the few teams with bodies to throw at the Lakers bigs; in addition to Mozgov and McGee, they have Kosta Koufos, giving them three 7 foot players. I believe the Lakers will continue to have problems with speedy point guards, and Lawson gave them fits last year, scoring at least 24 points in 4 of the 7 games in their series. Lawson is young, talented, and growing into the starting role on the team, and having Iguodala there will prove a great help in my opinion. Like last year, I think they just match up well with the Lakers. Don't be surprised if a postseason meeting between the two teams goes to 7 again.
Overall, the Lakers made a lot of moves that caused a splash in the league. However, they didn't really address the defense deficiencies they have at the 1 and 3 spots, and whether it is Denver wreaking havoc with Lawson, OKC slicing their defense with Durant and Westbrook, or Miami exposing weaknesses with LeBron, Wade, and Allen, I don't see the Lakers winning the championship. I think they will lead the league in wins during the regular season (I don't trust Wade's knee, and I think Spoelstra will play with lineups throughout the year. Doc has shown that he doesn't care too much about getting the 1 seed, so I think that despite Boston making good moves this offseason, there's a chance he errs on the side of caution and focuses on keeping his team healthy rather than pushing them harder.) but I can pretty much guarantee that unless some ridiculous injury (like Lebron blowing his knee out) occurs, it will be another Miami vs. OKC finals, which really...is great for the NBA. Two teams with nice-sized championship windows, different playing styles, polarizing players, great superstars, and young coaches. MUCH BETTER THAN KOBE HAVING A CHANCE AT EQUALING MJ'S 6 RINGS (OR *SHUDDERS* SURPASSING HIS 6 RINGS). FUCK KOBE, FUCK THE LAKERS.
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